Postdoctoral Professional Career Development

Postdoctoral professional career development:

Self-assessment questionnaire

This document is intended specifically for Postdocs. It is meant to facilitate an annual assessment of your current position, aid reflection on your accomplishments and help you identify what is required for progress towards your professional goals. It is based on the concept of an ”Individual Development Plan”(IDP).[1]

The eight main points in this document are meant to aid you in your self-assessment. For each point, different types of questions guide you through the process of reflection. It is not necessary to answer all the questions nor to fill every box (please refer to the document “guidelines and useful resources”for additional information on each area). As you fill out this document, keep in mind that it is personal and is meant to support the process (the subsequent private consultation and sharing of the experience), and it is informal (it will not be transmitted to the HR department nor to the Dean’s office).

This self-assessment and development plan should aid:

evaluation of your current competencies;
definition of your project and the degree of commitment necessary to be successful;
awareness of the requisite competencies to develop for the achievement of your objectives;
definition of how to improve and develop these competencies in order to achieve your goals;
receive honest feedback in order to formulate realistic goals.

After you finish your self-assessment, it is recommended to discuss it with a resource person such as a department head, a project principal applicant, a professor, or a mentor. This is an effective way to receive feedback on your reflections and to define your professional development plan. To initiate this process, send your resource person a partial or complete version of this document in addition to your CV.

During your career, there will always be aspects which are beyond your control (e.g., institutional issues, people involved in the recruitment process). The goal of this questionnaire is to help you examine personal attributes that are within your control.

Preliminary general questions

Before you start asking specific questions, consider your general objectives in filling out this questionnaire:

Define your working goals for the coming year, through the analysis of your current position?
Think about how to evolve in your academic career?
Assess your acquired competencies in terms of integrating into non-academic job markets?

1.Publication

Do you feel confident in your writing skills? Did you receive any specific recommendations or critical feedback? Have you considered seeking additional training?
What papers, articles, book chapters, or books did you write last year? Were they submitted, approved or published? Were you solicited to write them?
What are your publication strategies (e.g., to be read, to vary the types of publication, publishing related to your preferred topics, consideration of national or international impacts, publishing exclusively in well-known journals or other mediums)?
Have you published any articles for a non-scientific audience such as popular science publications?
Have you been asked to review, analyze or critique the publications or research of your peers?
What documents, articles, or books are you planning to write or contribute to this year?